Push to protect woodpecker may impact salvage logging

Environmentalists are seeking protection for the black-backed woodpecker.

Contributed photo / www.marksbirdtours.com

An environmentalist group has filed a petition urging state wildlife managers to put a woodpecker under California’s endangered or threatened species protection, a move that both environmentalists and timber officials say could drastically curtail salvage logging around the state.

Late last month, the Tuscon, Ariz., based Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition with the California Fish and Game Commission seeking protected status for the black-backed woodpecker.

“Just as the spotted owl demonstrated the ecological value of old-growth forests, the black-backed woodpecker is now showing us the importance of post-fire snag forests,” said Chad Hanson, a scientist with the John Muir Project, which teamed with the center to file the petition.

The birds nest and feed on beetles living in dead snags and burned trees. The bird’s name comes from its black feathers which, biologists say, have evolved to blend into the charred tree trunks on which it feeds.

The center’s biologists contend the beetles the birds eat are only found in forests that have been around for several years after a fire, so the black-backed woodpecker depends on regular fires to create new snag-forest habitat.

Under current salvage logging rules, those forests are being cut down around the state, and the birds’ numbers have drastically shrunk, said Justin Augustine, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney.

“California’s forestry rules currently contain a loophole that allows post-fire salvage logging to essentially occur unchecked, which allows the destruction of vital habitat for the black-backed woodpecker and other species,” he said. “State-level endangered species protection for the woodpecker will help close that loophole.”

Mark Pawlicki, a spokesman for Sierra Pacific Industries, an Anderson-based timber company, said there’s no science to support the environmentalists’ claims.

He said California is at the very bottom edge of the bird’s habitat and that the reason why the bird is hard to find is because there have never been that many around.

He compared the environmentalists’ complaints to worrying about a lack of snow in San Diego.

He said the petition is yet another attempt by environmentalists to curtail logging in any form, even on dead trees torched by fires.

“They would have dead trees standing there returning to brush fields,” Pawlicki said, noting that loggers still have to abide by the same rules and regulations on dead trees as they do with green timber. The only difference is they don’t have to have paperwork approved in advance before logging a burned area, he said.

The center counters that burned forests are vital to species living there, particularly bird species.

“The public’s perception of a snag forest is one of devastation, when actually it is an ecological treasure trove,” the center’s scientists wrote in their petition. “Thousands of native beetles burrow into and lay their eggs inside the blackened trees, which in turn attracts large numbers of insect-feeding birds.”

The petition is being reviewed by the Department of Fish and Game, whose scientists will be discussing the matter this week, said DFG spokeswoman Dana Michaels.

She said that should the department accept the petition, state scientists will have 90 days to review and analyze it before sending it the Fish and Game Commission for official consideration.

The commission has a year to make a decision.

Pawlicki said that during that time, restrictions can be put on logging until the commission makes a decision.

The Center of Biological Diversity this year also sued the Department of Fish and Game over its fish stocking policies in high mountain lakes and another suit against the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in an attempt to block clear cutting on Sierra Pacific land.